Even if it’s warm and sunny outside, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy a good old-fashioned snowball fight. Thankfully, all you need is a little crafty ambition and creativity to have an indoor snowball fight.
To have an indoor snowball fight, you’ll need to make or buy your snowballs, design the rules, divide everyone into teams, design the arena, play the game, and declare the winners. To get your kids fully involved, you can get them to help make the snowballs before starting the fight.
We’ve put together a step-by-step guide with detailed instructions on making snowballs and fun game ideas. If you’re looking to host the ultimate indoor snowball fight, read on to discover all the best tips and tricks.
Make the Snowballs
You don’t want to be throwing real snow around your house. The mess would be unbelievable! Thankfully, there are a few different options for imitation snowballs to use for your indoor fight.
How to Make Soft Snowballs From Floof
Floof is a great option for soft snowballs. The unique modeling clay has a texture like a marshmallow, which you can manipulate and mold into any shape. It’s also soft on impact, making it a great safe option for indoor snowball fights with kids.
Making soft snowballs from Floof is super simple, so you can easily get the kids involved.
- Grab yourself a bucket of Floof Modeling Clay (link to Amazon).
- Tear small pieces of modeling clay, roughly the size of your hands.
- Use the craft molds to make perfect spheres or use your hands to roll out imitation snowballs.
If you need a little more guidance, this fun video shows you how Floof works:
The only downside with this method is that over time it can collect lint and hair and can be hard to clean.
How to Make Yarn Pom Pom Snowballs
Yarn pom-pom snowballs are a great affordable alternative. They’re soft enough to be safe for kids but heavy enough to throw in a snowball fight. By following these steps, you can make your pom-poms.
- Get some bundles of white yarn. We recommend the Red Heart Super Saver Yarn from Amazon.
- Cut two identical medium-sized circles out of cardboard. You can use a drinking glass as a trace.
- Cut a smaller circle through the middle of each of the cardboard circles. A small coin works well as a trace.
- Place the two circles together and cut a small wedge out from the center to the edge. The tracers should now look like donuts with a small piece missing.
- Hold two long pieces of yarn parallel and start wrapping them around the cardboard tracers.
- Once you have wrapped the entire cardboard, take some scissors and cut through the yarn between the tracers.
- Cut the long threads and tie off the ends.
- Cut two 12-inch (30.5cm) lengths of yarn and slip it between the cardboard tracers.
- Tie the ends off with two knots and pull off the tracers.
This simple video tutorial walks you through how to make pom-pom snowballs from yarn:
Alternative Snowball Options
If you decide on a last-minute indoor snowfall fight and have no time to go to the craft store, you can emulate snowballs by rolling up balls of fluffy, white socks. They won’t look as realistic as the other options, but they’re soft and easy to throw.
We’ve created a whole article about How To Make Indoor Snowballs here in case you want some more ideas.
The Best Store-Bought Snowballs
If you’re short on time or don’t have the skills to create snowballs from scratch, we recommend the Snowtime Anytime Indoor Snowball Fight Pack (link to Amazon). It has pre-made snowballs to get the game started as soon as possible.
This really is the easiest and fastest way to have indoor snowball fights.
Make Your Rules for the Game
You have a few options when planning your indoor snowball fight. You can have a fun free-for-all with snowballs flying everywhere, or you can have a proper game and turn it into a competition.
Simple Fight
This is the best option if you want to encourage free-play. While you might not want to impose game rules, it could be a good idea to make a rule that no one throws snowballs directly at the face. This is a good way to avoid tears and injuries.
Against the Clock
This is a straightforward game that can get exciting very quickly. The rules are simple:
- You need two teams on two different sides of the room.
- You will set a timer for 5 minutes.
- The goal is to throw the snowballs to the opposite side of the room.
- Players cannot throw more than one snowball at a time, nor can they use their feet.
- Whichever team has the most balls on their side when the timer ends loses.
If you have a larger group and want to increase the stakes, then you can make another rule that any player hit by a snowball is out of the game.
Bucket Toss
If you want to combine your indoor snowball fight with basketball-style rules, then a bucket toss game is a great option. The instructions for the bucket toss game are straightforward:
- Split everyone into two teams and put them on opposite sides of the room.
- Draw a small line on both sides of the room.
- Place a bucket around 15 feet (4.5m) away from each of the lines.
- Line up each team in a single file behind the line on the ground.
- Each team has 5 minutes to throw the snowballs one by one into the bucket from behind the line.
- At the end of the 5 minutes, the team with the most successful bucket tosses wins.
Divide Everyone Into Teams
Depending on the size and demographics of your group, you have a few different options for snowball fight teams:
- Every man for himself in an elimination-style game
- Boys vs. girls
- Parents vs. kids
- Elected teams with team captains
Your best options are an elimination-style game or getting the kids to team up against their parents because of fewer players in a family. If you’re hosting the fight at a school or daycare, then electing captains who choose their teams is a great way to make sure there are equal numbers on each team.
Design the Arena
Depending on your space, you may need to make some adjustments to design the indoor snowball fight arena. If you’re fighting in a large space like a gymnasium, mark a line in the center. Make it a rule that members of opposite teams cannot cross the line. It could be better to restrict the fight to one room at home, like the living room, to avoid chaos.
Start the Game
This is the fun part. Once you’ve completed all of the preparations, you can start the indoor snowball fight.
It’s a good idea to have someone supervising the game that isn’t playing. They can act as a referee to make sure that no one gets hurt, starts arguments, or breaks the rules.
Declare the Winners
Once the stopwatch has run out of time, or the kids have run out of steam, it’s time to finish the indoor snowball fight and announce the winners. You can add value to the win with a reward like extra TV time for the winners at home or making the losers clean up the snowballs at school.
Conclusion
It’s super simple to have an indoor snowball fight. All you need is a group of players, some imagination, and a little skill with crafts.
You can get your kids involved to make the snowballs and set different rules to have the best possible game. It’s important to set ground rules for safety. However, the most important thing is that everyone has fun.